
Learn how to find and install a C compiler across Windows, Linux, and Mac, using GCC/GNU compilers and MinGW options, to start programming in C.
Create a hello world program in a text editor, include stdio.h, define int main, print hello world with printf, return 0, and compile with make to run.
Introduce C language primitive types: integers, characters, and floating point types. Explain signed versus unsigned and show how to determine sizes and value ranges using size of type.
Explore how to read C library function documentation with man pages, focus on section 3 for printf details, and determine type sizes using sizeof and format specifiers.
Explore shortcut assignment operators in C, such as += and -=, and their one-step operations. Demonstrate prefix and postfix increment and decrement, and how 32 shifts case in characters.
Explore how C makes decisions with the ternary operator, if-else chains, and switch statements, using relational, equality, and logical operators on integral types.
explore boolean operators in C by defining true and false as integers, testing relational and equality operators, and printing results with printf using the ternary operator to show truth values.
Learn how to use a five-element grades array stored as a collection of values, indexed from zero, then loop to print each grade, accumulate total, and compute a float average.
Explore how pointers are variables that store memory addresses, using the address-of and indirection operators to access values.
Explore how pointers work in C by declaring an int and its pointer, printing addresses and contents, and using argc and argv as strings.
Compare while, do-while, and for loops in C, highlighting pre-check versus post-check execution and the initialization, condition, and increment components while counting from 0 to 9.
Explore how C functions work, including void returns, parameter passing, and basic function calls. Learn casting int to float, printing via functions, and printing wedges with a symbol and lines.
Understand how pass by value and pass by reference work in C. See how pointers modify outside values and enable swaps and array access.
Demonstrate pass by value and pass by reference with a swap example, showing that using pointers and addresses swaps in place, while passing by value does not.
Explore the GCC function list and learn to use the scanf formatted input function to read two numbers, handle pointers, and identify proper headers like stdio.h.
Learn to read two integers with scanf using prompts, then compute and display their sum, product, and maximum with simple functions in C.
Explore finding max and min in an array using pointer arithmetic in C, illustrating pointers as addresses, array equivalence, and limits.h values; learn risks of misuse.
Explore a structured C demo that defines a book structure with title, author, and pages, allocates a heap instance with malloc, accesses fields via dot and arrow, and frees memory.
Master linked lists by learning how singly and doubly linked structures use head and tail pointers, next and previous links, and memory management with allocation and free.
Interprets command-line tokens as stack commands in a simple C interpreter. Pushes integers from numeric tokens, supports swap, print, mem operations, and error-checked parsing.
Explore queue fundamentals with a linked-list queue, enqueuing to the end and dequeuing from the front, contrast with a stack, and model a to-do list.
Enqueue strings from an array into a queue, then repeatedly dequeue and prompt 'have you done the task' until the queue is empty, illustrating a simple queue in C.
Explore a doubly linked list demo using nodes with name and phone number, head, tail, and current pointers, and add and delete operations with traversal via next and previous.
The C programming language has spurred many language developments since its invention by Dennis Ritchie in the early 1970s. Many modern programming languages owe their syntax to C: learning C first makes learning other languages such as Java, php, and Swift much easier. C is still a very popular programming language after over 40 years
In this course, we'll explore the C programming language in a different way than is usually taught. We'll start with data types (of course), then quickly dispel the mystery (and fright) that surrounds C's most powerful element, the pointer. Understanding pointers first allows us to grasp the underlying nature of arrays and structs, parameters passed by reference, and many other things hidden by other languages but exposed in C.
The course contains five units that teach the foundations of C. Here's what you'll learn:
- Data types and operators
- Pointers and arrays
- Input and output
- Command line arguments
- Decisions and loops
- Functions
- Value and reference parameter passing
- Structures
- The stack vs. the heap, and dynamic allocation
- Working with linked lists
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